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Fried Chickens

Fried chickens seasoned with salt and pepper, pan‑fried and served with a sauce made from flour, butter, lard, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Clean and cut the chickens down the back.

  2. Wash and dry the chickens.

  3. Season the chickens with salt and pepper.

  4. In a pan, heat equal parts butter and lard.

  5. Dredge the chickens in flour.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the chickens slowly until golden brown on both sides.

  2. Remove the chickens from the pan.

  3. Add a little flour to the pan.

  4. Pour in boiling water to achieve a proper thickness.

  5. Let the mixture simmer for a short time.

  6. Add more salt and pepper if necessary.

  7. Pour the sauce over the chickens and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat that is cooked through while the skin turns crisp and golden.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the fat and later thickens the pan sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the coating brown in the frying fat.
Lard
Provides a high-heat frying fat that browns the coating evenly and adds savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the chickens slowly until golden brown on both sides. Slow frying over moderate heat lets the thick pieces cook through before the flour coating darkens and burns. Turning them so both sides brown evenly gives a crisp, uniform crust.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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